Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Range Voting

My Post article on the Indonesian electoral system provoked a number of email responses with further ideas on electoral systems.  Amongst these were emails from two campaigners who advocate in support of range voting (also known as score voting).  In their opinion (and I have some sympathy with their position) range voting is the ultimate democratic preferential voting system.  In range voting each voter gives each candidate/party on the ballot list a score out of ten or out of one hundred.  The winner is determined by the candidate/party with the highest average score at the end of counting.  It is very similar to the system of determining a winner in a diving competition.  

I maintain that this system is to complex and ungainly for most electorates.  However, the more I have thought about it, the more I find the system attractive at least in an academic sense.  If you would like to know more I would strongly recommend that you check out the range voting website to understand the beauty and complexity of this novel electoral system.       

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Anti-smoking presentation

My recent presentation to the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club received some media coverage on Sky News Australia and on a radio programme called Asia Calling. Unfortunately, the selected quotes on that radio programme were not, in my view, the best of the presentation. Please enjoy the following linked stroies at Asia Calling (English, Bahasa Indonesia) and Sky News.